Possession
by Mercator
Summary: Lord Vetinari hatches the most elegant and ambitious plan of his life. All he needs is time, patience and a little girl...FINI
1. Default Chapter

--- Here it is, the short Vetinari romance I promised, in 3 chapters. Warnings: This is not comedy. This is rather twisted, and gets twistier as it goes along. I never wanted to actually post it; it was written originally in early 2003 before "Say Yes." But I dusted it off and gave it some polish so I could dedicate it to a reader and friend I thought might like it --- **Dominofalling**.  So here's to you, Domino, for your support and kindness. 

Disclaimer: DW belongs to Terry Pratchett. --

**1.**

            There are seven ways to get out of the Winter Palace without being seen. The Patrician knows of six, and makes use of them at rotating intervals. Today it's the passage from the third storage room in the widdershins wing that winds round toward the garden, proceeds underground, connects up with a forgotten part of the old Ankh-Morpork sewer system and emerges on Rimes Street. He blends into the crowd in the shopping district; his black suit does it, the high collar and starched cravatte, the top hat, the package under his arm. As a young man he moved about in gray and blended into the background based on principles of camouflage. That's no longer a challenge. More interesting to make others think him something he isn't. It's partly a matter of clothing but mostly of attitude. Today he's a prosperous businessman with a newspaper in his overcoat pocket. He's a middle aged man of investments. When someone knocks into him and rushes on without apology, the Patrician is satisfied with his disguise.

            As supreme ruler of Ankh-Morpork, the Patrician can't enjoy the city as a reader enjoys a book. He dissects it, like a writer deconstructs the story to see how it works. The coal chutes on Rimes are spaced too widely apart, he thinks. There's a broken lantern on the corner of Gleam and Cable. Septimus Square on the outskirts of the Shades has more than its share of night soil. A woman shouts "Gardy Loo!" from somewhere above and the Patrician hops out of the way as excrement, potato peels and chicken bones arch out of a window and splat on the pavement beside him. He checks his coat for dirt and adjusts the package under his arm. Drains, he thinks. Gutters on Rimes. Street sweepers, water pumped up from the Ankh to clear away the debris. He suddenly wants the city clean. He wants a brush in his hand, a bucket of soapy water, a broom, a garden hose. It's a subject he's ignored for too long, sanitation. The time has come. Clean it up, scrub it till it shines like the face of a child...

            On the other side of the square he pauses to check the package he carries. The paper is the same dark blue as his eyes and there's a silver ribbon tied in a bow. He's crushed the bow under his arm but tries to fluff it back up. It sags again. A small card hangs from the ribbon: _For Ellie_.

---

            Twenty years ago, Septimus Square was the center of Ankh-Morpork's pleasure district. The shops sold specific articles for specific occasions that arose in the night between women and men, girls and men, boys and men. There was no guild yet to regulate it all. Lord Vetinari, a young, ambitious nobleman, walked in the square, dissecting it, deconstructing. It was his habit to walk the city, examining it with sharp eyes and a sharper mind. In Septimus he thought of the organization of vice. This energy funnelled into profit. He ignored the suggestions, the offers, the flashes of skin. A guild for the good of the women and men, he thought. And the children. If demand could not be stifled, control the supply.

            He paused to watch a typical scene. A boy of about 13 with raw lips and a bent spine stopped a well dressed man and whispered something to him. Rings flashed in the daylight as the man slapped the boy hard across the face. The boy blinked up at him. The man nodded. They left together.

            "Sir?"

            The little voice was accompanied by a tug on Vetinari's sleeve and an unpleasant smell. It was a girl, tall as Vetinari's elbow, thin as a twig, so grimy that her braids could have been blond under the dirt, her face white under the soot. It was hard to tell. The only clean part of her were her eyes, large and honey brown.

            "Sir, do you...?" Her eyes darted to an alley, where a man leaned against the wall, his arms folded. She looked back up at Vetinari. "Sir, do you want…?" Vetinari stepped away but she followed, tripping in the gutter.

            "Sir! I can..."

            Children, he thought as he brushed her aside and wiped his hand on his coat. The demand could not be controlled. But there was something not right about children. He wasn't happy with the direction of his thoughts. They were almost moral.

            The girl followed him, stumbling behind, her hand outstretched. "A coin, at least, for the queen of Hersheba, sir?" she said.

            He turned. If he was not mistaken, and he rarely was, the girl had just quoted a line from the classical play "Atalanta." In her face he saw fatigue, hunger and fear. Not a spark of whatever it was that would bring a street rat to quote the classics. He assumed someone taught her the line as a trick, an intriguing talent to rope in more learned and moneyed clients. Disgusted, he turned again and left her behind.

            He walked the full circuit of the pleasure district and turned back onto Septimus Square before he realized what he'd done. He'd been remembering "Atalanta" and feeling slightly ashamed. He should have given the filthy thing a coin.

            The surge of people in Septimus at dusk didn't hinder Vetinari from spotting her quickly. The man who had watched them earlier was shaking her and she was crying, her hands up to protect her face. He swatted her arms away and slapped her with the back of his hand. Once, twice. The third time Vetinari caught his wrist with one hand and held up a bright object of interest with the other. A coin.

            "For the girl," he said.

            The man freed his wrist and stared as if expecting the coin to turn into coal if he blinked.

            "The scamp's not worth gold."

            "Take it."

            The man enclosed the coin in his hand, smiled slyly and patted the girl on the head.

            "You be good, little mite," he said. He did an exaggerated bow before Vetinari. "Enjoy your purchase, sir. May you gain more profit from'r than I." He kissed the coin with a loud smack, tucked it into his vest pocket and strolled up the street, whistling.

            The girl's hands still covered her face. Vetinari suppressed the distaste he felt, grasped the back of her collar with thumb and index finger and pulled her away from the square. He halted her at the door of a cheap house where the smell of cabbage poured into the street.

            "Stop crying," he ordered.

            The girl wiped her runny nose with a soiled sleeve, took one look at Vetinari, and broke into fresh sobs. He hadn't yet cultivated the pallor, looming thinness and unblinking stare that were part of his carefully chosen image later in life. As a young man, his face was composed of sharp things – an angular nose, slim, arched eyebrows, a thin, unsmiling mouth. He'd never thought about the effect of his appearance on children. There were no more in his family and he never wished to meet anyone else's. 

            It was this lack of experience that made Vetinari stoop before her, reasoning that she'd calm if she got a good look at his face. He'd seen other adults do it, with positive result. She looked at him through her fingers, then shrank away. Vetinari caught her, pulled her hands away from her face and pressed them to her chest.

            "Your heart is inside of you for a reason, child," he said. "Never show it on your sleeve."

            He directed her into the public house and sat her at a table in the corner. By the time bread with sausage, cabbage soup and a glass of water sat before her, the girl's eyes were dry. She took such large bites from the bread that Vetinari could see where her milk teeth had been. 

            "What is your name?" he asked.

            She choked down a bite of sausage. "Ellie, sir."

            "How old are you?"

            "Fifteen, sir."    He guessed ten or eleven.

            "Was that your father?"

            She paused, her eyes on her soup. "No, sir."

            Vetinari had walked the rougher streets enough to know that the genteel concept of family did not apply. "Never mind. Do you know the play 'Atalanta'?"

            "Can't read, sir."

            She dunked the last of the bread into the remains of the soup and pressed it into her mouth. It was washed down by a great gulp of water. He could see the energy pour back into her.

            "Do you want to be a prostitute?" he asked.

            She plunked down her glass. "It's a lie! I'm not, sir!" The tears spilled over again, cutting creeks in the dirt on her face.

            He held out his handkerchief. "Dry your face, child. You're quite unbearable when you blubber like that."

            On the street again, Ellie kept the handkerchief before her nose and Vetinari led her once again by the collar. He halted her in front of a wooden house where a sign overhead announced "Peterson's Rest." The place did not have hourly rates, and charged enough to weed out the truly vagrant and criminal.

            "What's this place?" asked Ellie.

            "A hotel of sorts."

            She blew her nose loudly, crumpled up the handkerchief and looked as if she resolved something. She went in without being led.

            The owner leaned over the counter, stared at them and stated, "This is a respectable house."

            Vetinari pulled Ellie aside and held up a coin. "If you're frugal, this will last you at least a week, food and lodgings." She stared at it as if she'd never seen anything like it.

            "Thank you, sir," she whispered.

            "Get them to give you a bath."

            "Yes, sir."

            "And eat at least one hot meal a day. You're too thin."

            "Yes, sir."

            She folded the coin in her hand and pressed it to her chest. Vetinari examined her a moment and noticed her trembling. Perhaps she was ill.

            "Sleep and drink tea."

            "Yes, sir."

            She looked up at him with eyes so wide he could see the whites around the irises. She was so small, childish, a thin, trembling thing. Drowned kittens looked less pitiful. With a sigh, Vetinari held up a second coin. Ellie's eyes followed it. Gold.

            "Keep this safe," he said. "Others will try to take it from you…"

            His voice trailed off as a tiny idea took root in his mind. It sprouted, grew, blossomed in the space of a few seconds. An idea so _elegant _– he couldn't think of a better word for it— that he looked down at the girl and smiled at her for the first time. He dropped the gold coin into her outstretched hand. "Don't spend it. I'll need it when I come back. In one week. Do you understand?"

            The two coins together were more than most street people earned in a month. Ellie clutched them tightly in her fist. 

            Savouring the thoughts that lined up like soldiers in his mind, Vetinari pushed open the hotel door. Ellie followed him outside.

            "Who are you, sir?"

            Over his shoulder he said, "Mr. Trenolone."

--

            Vetinari arrived at Peterson's Rest after a week of walking, thinking and cultivating his idea. Ellie was there in a little room that smelled of roses and contained a single bed, a table, two chairs, a dresser and a small window that faced a bricked in shaft. She welcomed him with a cheerful smile, ushered him into the room and showed him around as if it was a palace. She wore a banana yellow dress of taffeta with white lace frills. It was sparkling clean, as was Ellie herself. Her hair was dark blonde and braided down her back, tied off with a yellow ribbon. There was no more grime under her finger nails.

            "I've eaten two meals a day since you left, Mr. Trenolone," she said happily, flouncing into a chair. "Hot meals. And I drink lots of tea."

            "Good," said Vetinari. "Where's my coin?"

            "Look, sir! I have soap. It smells like peaches." She fetched the soap and held it up to him. He shook his head.

            "My coin, please."

            "Do you like my perfume, sir? It's called Rose Garden."

            "Ellie."

            The girl's manic smile fell a little. "I have sugar biscuits. Do you want one, sir?"

            Vetinari ignored the tin she held out to him. Ellie backed away, shoved a biscuit nervously into her mouth and set the tin on the dresser. When she reached under a bed pillow, a black-haired doll fell onto the floor. She tucked it back hastily, and drew a beaded purse out instead. Coins rattled as she poured them into her palm. Vetinari held out his hand. Ellie gave a little yelp, dropped the coins at his feet and scampered away. On the other side of the bed, she dropped to her knees and held her arms over her face as if to deflect a blow.

            Vetinari looked at the coppers on the floor.

            "I am disappointed, Ellie," he said. "Tell me, where is your old dress?"

            From her crouch, Ellie stared at him through her fingers. Vetinari took matters into his own hands, opening the dresser drawers one after the other until he found the soiled dress. He tossed it onto the bed.

            "Put it on."

            She shook her head.

            He stared down at her and repeated himself more slowly, deliberately. "Ellie. Put-the-dress-on."

            "No," she whispered. "Sir."

            Vetinari stooped and plucked at the yellow dress. "You must take this off."

            Ellie shrank into the wall, her arms crossed tightly over her chest. "I don't want to!"    

            At that moment, Vetinari did, to his annoyance, lose his patience. Unlike some men, he did not show this with a raised voice or, especially with children, a raised hand. The change resembled more the transformation of mortar from a strong yet flexible material to an immovable substance on which houses are built. In other words, impatience made him stubborn as a brick.

            He yanked Ellie to her feet and undid the first few buttons of her dress. "Go change," he ordered, steering her toward a screen in the corner.

            "No!"

            "_Ellie_…"

            "No!" She hooked her arm around the bed post and held on like it was a ship mast in a storm.

            Vetinari paused for a quick self-assessment and decided to take a different, more calming tack.

            "Ellie, I asked you not to spend the gold coin, remember?" He waved a hand. "It's done and we can't change it. But perhaps I will let you keep your doll if you change back into your old dress."

            She looked at him through eyes slit with distrust. "I want my dress and my doll."

            Vetinari tipped his head to the side as if considering. "That would be nice, and I would like you to have both. I really would. Unfortunately, as things stand, you must choose: the doll or the dress."

            "Why?"

            "You know you did wrong to spend the gold coin. I'm very disappointed and I'll tell you why. I wanted to buy you a dress myself. A prettier one. All the girls in Ankh are wearing blue these days. A blue like the ocean, have you seen it?" He shrugged. "Alas, you've chosen that thing. Yellow. Not a very nice color."

            "I like it." Ellie's voice had an edge of uncertainty.

            "No doubt you do, no doubt you do. But your doll, now…" Vetinari fetched it from under the bed pillow and looked at it admiringly. "She is beautiful." He moved a ceramic arm up and down, a wave to Ellie, who had eased her grip on the bed post. "What's her name?" he asked.

            "Mary."

            "Mary. Wonderful. Such a lovely porcelain face, rosy cheeks and lips. And these eyes… it's almost like she's alive." He nodded. "Yes, I'm sure Mary keeps you company very well. She would be sad if you gave her up."

            Ellie went slowly up to Vetinari, snatched Mary out of his hands and crushed the doll to her chest. He smiled down at her, all encouragement.

            "So. Will it be Mary or the dress?"     

            Ellie smoothed back the doll's black hair and straightened its dress. It was blue.

            "You'll buy me a blue dress, sir?"

            "That is entirely up to you."

            With a nod, Ellie scooped up her old, soiled dress and carried it with Mary behind the screen. In the meantime, Vetinari gathered up the biscuit tin, the perfume, a cheap bracelet he spotted on a chair and the cosmetic pots and hair ribbons he'd seen in a dresser drawer. When Ellie reappeared, he took the yellow dress from her hands and used it to bundle up the other things. Ellie watched without protest. She carried Mary in the crook of her arm.

            "Now then," said Vetinari. "You are a wise child. You made the right choice." He took two new coins out of his pocket, one gold. "You get a second chance. One coin for you to spend, one for me when I come back. In a week. Do you understand?"

            Ellie nodded. Vetinari patted her on the head.

            "Good girl."

            A week later, she threw open the door of her room to him. She hopped around him, giggling, the gold coin already in her hand. The smile he gave her was broad, indulgent.  She beamed under his gaze.

            "You'll soon get your blue dress," he said.

            "Today, Mr. Trenolone?"

            "Mmm…not today. I have something else for you."

            From behind his back he brought out a package wrapped in brown paper and tied with string. Ellie swooped it up, spun to the bed and ripped it open. Her excitement dimmed. The package contained a primer, a speller, a notebook and a packet of pencils. Vetinari sat down beside her.

            "You will learn to read and write," he said.

            Ellie pushed the books aside.

            "Why?"

            "To please me."

--

            After the little girl learned her first lessons in prioritization, self-denial and thrift, she became Vetinari's special project. He approached it with the same single-mindedness that he showed in all his work. Within a month of their meeting, she had her blue dress and a shiny new pair of black shoes, a reward for quick progress on the alphabet. Within a year, she had a closet full of dresses. She soon knew the play "Atalanta" by heart. "A coin, at least, for the queen of Hersheba?" she'd recite with a comic edge. She had told him she learned it from a thief, a woman who used to cackle it like vaudeville to passersby on the Brass Bridge.

             She worked hard and grew older and Vetinari was pleased, and a little surprised, at how everything moved along according to the plan he'd worked out in those first few weeks, based on that elegant first idea. Ellie learned literature, history, geography, a smattering of natural science in relation to poisonous plants. She learned the anatomy taught in the Assassins Guild school, where Vetinari had learned it. She devoured books and filled notebooks with a childish scrawl that soon turned into a sophisticated script, an imitation of Vetinari's clipped and efficient style except for the exuberant swirls at the end of her y's and g's. They invented a secret code based on "Atalanta" as an exercise in language and mathematics. She began the basics of several foreign languages. Vetinari drilled her so hard that at times she fell asleep over her notebook, pencil in hand. He'd leave her alone for a couple of hours, then wake her and start again. "You can sleep longer when you die," he'd tell her. "For now, you have work to do." With that, she learned to live on only a few hours of sleep, at least when Vetinari was there. He still lived in the family mansion in Ankh but he visited her most afternoons or nights of the week, new books under his arm, notebooks, quills, maps.

            By the time she was 14, Vetinari subtly shifted the lesson plan. If he spent the morning talking with corn factors about the city's grain supply, he spent the afternoon with Ellie explaining the concept of supply and demand. An afternoon alone examining the condition of the streets became an evening with Ellie and a city map, discussion: solutions for traffic control. Bored at first, Ellie was soon infected by Vetinari's interest in these things. She pinned a large map of the Disc on the wall and questioned him closely about foreign countries. It was an encouraging development. He introduced her to the concept of diplomacy.

            In between the discussions about city planning and foreign cultures, he taught her less tangible lessons. Beware of friendly faces, he told her. Suspect the smile and the open hand. Savour silence and its power. He looked to another line in their favorite play: "Atalanta, do not marry. Marriage will be your ruin," and taught her the wisdom of self-reliance. Self-containment. Inner direction. Once when he urged her to fall backward in front of him as a test of his trustworthiness, he intended to let her fall. It was a lesson she needed to learn. He planned it that way right up to the moment when his arms reached out and caught her.

_TBC_...


	2. II

-- Good mornin' readers… I realize this is a rather challenging story for fanfic – something written in alternating past and present "times" – so I appreciate all of you who are curious enough to read on. **Byrdgirl** – no Hanna here. I originally wrote the story before Hanna was invented. **LadyNemesis** – I trust I won't disappoint you on the twisted-ness. Wait and see! **Bino** – Thanks for the kind words. **Twist** and others with questions on the age difference between Ellie and Vetinari – That's answered below. So…time to get on with it! --

**2**.

            Peterson's Rest doesn't exist anymore. The Patrician pauses at the right address and finds nothing that he remembers. Seven years ago the owners of the neighboring wig factory bought the place, tore it down and built an extension of the workshop. He wanted the hotel destroyed, that first place Ellie had slept indoors in months. He marked it as a fire hazard on the municipal maps. He encouraged Peterson to retire, to sell out. On the day of the demolition, he watched from his carriage as the plank walls collapsed.

            Now, the factory hums, 100 employees making wigs. The Patrician looks at the selection in the ground floor store front – ladies wigs, a fashion at the moment, mostly blond, curled and piled to impractical heights. He considers buying one as a gift. She'd laugh. Then again, perhaps not today.

            He changes the package from one arm to the other and walks on, ignoring the newsboys surrounded by people eager to buy the very special edition of the day's newspapers. The one copy he carries in his pocket has everything the competing papers have; he read them all before they hit the streets at dawn. He heads toward the putrid waters of the Ankh, destination -- the New Bridge. He makes a mental note of a large crack in the road and calculates the speed of erosion on the stone, taking into account Ankh-Morpork's average yearly rainfall and the amount of traffic on the cobbles.

            And he remembers…

            …fifteen years ago…

            …when she was writing at her desk and didn't look up when he came in. The air smelled of burnt paper; he saw torn sheets, half blackened, in the fire grate. The book case overflowed and more books were piled on the floor beneath the window. Before the days of the movable printing press, her library was already worth a small fortune. With her hair pinned up, her face pinched with concentration, Ellie looked older than 16. Older than when Vetinari last saw her. Four months ago.

            She put down her pen. Vetinari relaxed into a chair.

            "Your numbers please, Ellie."

            "One, two, three—"

            "In Klatchian."

            "El, dol, tel, lan…"

            He listened, corrected her pronunciation here and there, and watched her face. As she spoke she looked out the window at the dome of the Opera House across the street. Vetinari had moved her to the new flat a year ago. Peterson's Rest had become too small and shabby for them both. Faint music drifted into the room. She finished the numbers.

            "Good," he said.

            It had occurred to him that Ellie would be angry. Over the months he'd sent her money and notes in their private code but he forbade her to write him or attempt contact of any kind. His agents had reported that she rarely left her flat, and when she did, she normally walked the city, speaking to no one, doing nothing in particular. Last week had been an exception.

            "I'm the Patrician now," he said.

            She looked at him but said nothing.

            "The city is filthy, chaotic, violent, but I will teach it to be orderly. I will teach it to work for its own good."

            She crumpled up the page she'd been writing on and went to the grate. She hefted the iron poker in her hand, then thrust it aggressively into the ashes, looking for a lit coal.

            "There is much to do," said Vetinari. "I don't know how often I will come from now on."

            Ellie used the paper to re-ignite the fire. When she finished, she stood up and wiped her sooty hands on her skirt.

            "Once a week," she said.

            "Impossible. The work to be done is unimaginable. Snapcase left a--"

            "Then let me go."

            The upper registers of an aria from the Opera House drifted through the window. Vetinari thought the music unhealthy for the girl – it was surely making her sentimental -- and considered moving her again, perhaps to the other side of the canal.

            "You're no prisoner," he said. "You've learned more than most girls and you've saved from your allowance. Leave if you want."

            "Where would I go?"

            "You've always wanted to travel. Go to Quirm or Pseudopolis. Or Genua."

            "Get me a job at the palace."

            "You'll get nothing if you use that tone with me."

            "I have nothing now!" She stomped to her desk. Vetinari leaned back in his chair, watching her over his steepled fingers.

            "Such drama is unbecoming, Ellie. This is not theater. I will have no outbursts from you and no more amateur acrobatics on city bridges."

            "I love the theater. Street theater, too. Did you know there were jugglers in the square yesterday? And mimes! They're my favorite. At least _they_ don't lecture me when they botherto show their faces."

            Vetinari was satisfied to see that Ellie wasn't crying. Self control was the pillar of everything he had taught her over the years and he'd wondered lately if she was capable of learning the lesson.

            "I apologize," he said, "for missing your birthday."

            He had taught her about priorities. She knew what he intended to do even before he finished cultivating allies, or more accurately, sowing discord among potential enemies. He told her all along that she was not his first priority. Not even his second or third. He told her things would change after the city was his.

            The silence coming from Ellie could have filled a cavern. Though Vetinari had taught her the silence trick himself, it made him uncomfortable.

            "If you wish," he sighed, "I'll try to come. I can't promise every--"

            Ellie dropped to her knees beside his chair and hugged him tightly around the waist. Startled, he raised his hands in the air as if he was confronted by the violent end of a crossbow. After a few moments, he relaxed somewhat and allowed himself a few pats on her back.

            "I have something for you," she said suddenly. She rummaged in the pocket of her skirt and held up a small bundle wrapped in blue paper. "Congratulations, Lord Vetinari."

            He took the little package, not surprised that she called him by his real name. She was bound to learn it some time. Inside the paper was a small box and inside the box a tuft of cotton. He removed it and found a grubby, dented gold coin hanging from a thin metal chain.

--

            The New Bridge is full of ramshackle shops, the walls covered with placards and posters. The Patrician passes the placards without looking at them. Like the day's newspapers, they're familiar to him. His favorite is a poster engraving of an elegant piece of pottery with the words "The Wonders of Phalia: A new exhibition at the Winter Palace." Several thousand people have visited the Palace Museum already.

He looks in the shop windows as an excuse not to look down at the Ankh. Ellie lingered on the bridges often in the early days, staring at the water as the traffic passed. It was during his longest absence, that four-month transition from lord to Patrician, that his agents caught her in a balancing act on the edge of the Maudlin Bridge, her arms outstretched, her eyes on the water below. Vetinari hadn't wanted her to think such behaviour would be rewarded, so he waited a week  before going to her. It was a week when he worked like a man possessed, without any sleep at all. Three Palace clerks quit, citing workplace stress.

            The Patrician stops in at the bakery of John Bitterman at the end of the bridge. Without a word, Bitterman himself pulls a small white box tied with black ribbon from behind the counter. He's wearing gloves and doesn't look at the Patrician as he passes him the box. The bakery smells of Bitterman's sweetest creation, small sugar cakes covered in thick white glaze. The Patrician does not have a sweet tooth, and finds the scent rather sickening. He pays quickly and leaves.

--

            Ellie's 17th birthday was on a rainy and unseasonably cold spring day. To make up for his gaff from the year before, Vetinari arrived with packages in both hands, packages under his arms. A hat, silk gloves, a new book, ear rings, sugar cakes from Bitterman's. She modeled the hat for him and devoured a cake. The book was Klatchian poetry, which she set aside without opening.

            The armchair was angled toward the fire. Vetinari settled in and stretched his legs.

            "A miserable week," he said with a sigh.

            "It's rained every day," said Ellie. She sat on a foot stool beside him and leaned on her elbows on the arm of his chair.

            "The thieves simply refuse the idea of a guild. A few like the idea of policing their own but the men in the power base, they're still unconvinced. I'm afraid less pleasant persuasion may be necessary." He kicked off his boots and let the fire warm his stockings.

            "Did you tell them about the specials?" asked Ellie. "Offer victims the chance to pay for a year's burglary in advance?"

            "They don't believe a Patrician would allow it." 

            "Did you try glaring at them?"

            "I never glare."

            "What do you call what you're doing now?"

            He thought for a moment. "Staring intensely."

            "Maybe glaring at them would help."

            Vetinari sank back further into the chair until his feet nearly touched the fire. And then he did what no one at the palace had ever seen him do. He yawned.

            "Not much sleep?"

            "Too much to do. And I believe several dozen people with assorted weapons would form a line at my bedroom door the moment the candles went out."

            "Could I join them?"

            He smiled. "Of course. What weapon would you bring?"

            "A budget deficit."

            The smile lingered as he looked at her. A slim, smooth face, full lips she'd dabbed with a peach-colored cosmetic, thick lashes round brown eyes. And inside that head of hers, a sharp mind of his own making. She was strong, intelligent, pretty. He wondered if fathers felt like this. He had the same pride in her as he had some weeks before when the seamstresses finally formed a guild and agreed to clean up, in their way, Septimus Square. An old plan come to fruition. They'd negotiated about the children; they'd be quietly taken care of. Content, Vetinari closed his eyes.

            Ellie was accustomed to his long stares and had been watching him in turn. 

            "Can I ask you something, sir?"

            "Of course."

            The silence grew longer. Ellie rocked back on the foot stool, then took a sharp breath, reached for Vetinari's collar and undid the first few buttons. There was a gleam of gold at his throat.

            Later, he opened his eyes and saw her smiling happily at the fire.

--

            He's wearing it now. High collars are not the height of Ankh-Morpork fashion anymore but the Patrician stays true to the button-up style. The newspapers call it old-fashioned. He calls it prudent. Everything about him is scrutinized by the public, and the last thing he wanted over the years was speculation about the gold coin. Anyway, the "they" of popular opinion would probably come up with an entirely wrong interpretation, he thinks as he turns onto Scoone Avenue and passes the Ramkin mansion. They'd think he wears the coin as a symbol of his personal greed.

            He tips his hat to a near sighted old lady walking her poodle.

            Come to think of it, maybe he does.

--

            Chess bored Ellie when she was younger, no matter how Lord Vetinari tried to convince her of the beauty of logic, rules, order and strategy. When he wasn't at her lodgings, the chess board stayed on the shelf. She had no one to play with anyway.

            The board sat on the breakfast table, the black pieces outnumbering the white. Ellie's chin rested on her hand, her elbow on the table.

            "That is bad for your posture," said Vetinari. He moved a black pawn.

            "I'm 18," said Ellie.

            "Hm?"

            "You don't have to mind my posture anymore."

            "It's your move."

            Ellie glanced disinterestedly at the board and moved a white knight.

            "Are you sure you want to do that?" he asked.

            "Yes."

            "You didn't think first."

            "Yes I did."

            Vetinari took the knight with his bishop. "Chess is a game of careful, deliberate thought and intense concentration."

            "I know a better game."

            "Do you."

            Ellie set the chess pieces back into their start positions. "I call it 5-second chess."

            "Indeed." Lord Vetinari tried not to smile.

            "I thought of it a few days ago. We were talking about the loopholes in the Third Ephebian – Klatchian Peace Treaty, and you said that diplomacy is a game in which one side tries to rewrite the rules faster than the other. Since I never beat you at chess, I thought maybe I'd have more luck if I rewrote the rules."

            "It is possible. What are they?"

            "They're all the same. Except that players get only five seconds to decide each move."

            "You consider that an advantage for you?"

            Ellie tapped her temple. "I've been reading Thorsten's _Cognitologika_. He says the brain starts entrophying at age 30."

            Lord Vetinari laughed out loud, unheard of at the Palace but quite common these days with Ellie. In the past couple of years she'd amused him more and more. "How old do you think Thorsten was when he wrote that?"

            "The age of enlightenment: 18."

            "Come then, Enlightened One. Play."

            The first game was over in two minutes and Vetinari was the clear winner. He had the advantage after all, since Ellie insisted that the game could only be fair if he – the old man of 33 -- had five seconds to move while she – the young woman in the bloom of youth -- had three. The second game took three minutes, the third, two. Vetinari won every time.

            "Your experiment doesn't seem to be working," he said.

            "At least it's more fun."

            Ellie's face was rosy, as if she'd just taken a run out in the open air. She flicked over several of the chess pieces to signal the game was over.

            "I want to take a walk," she said.

            Vetinari stood up. "I should leave anyway. The Council will meet this afternoon and it is always prudent to review the minutes of previous meetings beforehand. The members do get so impressed…ah, I meant _distressed_… by my memory for what they've said in the past."

            Ellie slipped her arm in his. "I want to take a walk with you."

            "You know that's impossible."

            "Why should I be a secret?" she said. "It's not like we share a bed."

            Even the Patrician, a man who had trained his face to reveal emotion only on command, could not control the shock. Ellie pulled her hand away and went to the window.

            "Do you think I don't know how the world works? I knew years ago when you found me." She sneaked a peek at him. His face had changed from shock to a cold blankness. She softened her tone. "I know what it looks like already. I know how important that is, how things look. But if you just tell the truth—"

            "I've told you…"

            Ellie leaned against the windowsill. "It's a heart warming story, isn't it? Patrician saves girl from fate worse than death, raises her, educates her and forms her into a respectable young woman. That's all the truth. No one can say you ever laid a hand on me. I'll swear that you haven't and who should know better than me?"

            Vetinari turned away from her and paced the room for a few moments. He hated doing it; he'd always cultivated stillness to hide his nerves. "My position is not consolidated," he said finally. "If my enemies find out about you I will be forced to deny you completely, do you understand?"

            "Why? You haven't done anything wrong."

            "There are citizens of this city who would like nothing better than to learn that I've been carrying on in some capacity with an unknown young woman. My control of the city is still tentative. A whisper campaign could be the end of me."

            "I'm not your mistress."

            "No, but you're still a liability of the first order."

            She swept away from the window and went to the bookcase.

            "Why did you do all this, then?" She selected a slim notebook and flipped through the pages, which were covered with a childish script. "When I was little I thought you took me in because you didn't have children of your own. I wrote that down right here." She pointed at the middle of the page. "Now that I'm grown it's not a very good explanation. It doesn't explain why we're still here."

            "You can go at any time."

            "As long as I never say a word about how I was raised and never try to see you again."

            "Of course."

            "That's inhuman."

            "Practical."

            Ellie shoved the notebook back onto the shelf. "How far would you go to remove a liability?"

            Vetinari had regained something of his normal composure. He answered calmly. "As far as necessary."

--

            Even now so many years later, she doesn't know how close the Patrician has come to having her killed. Or how many times. He feels the regret as he walks through Ankh, that circumstances have always dictated the spies, in rotations day and night, shadowing her the moment she leaves the house, recording her every word, men ready with slim, sharp blades to be used if she appears with packed bags in the street. She has no unauthorized friends, just a series of his most discreet female agents to keep her company. All it takes is a chance meeting with the wrong person, the littlest slip on her part, a mention of him, even indirectly, a detail she shouldn't know. Over the years the Patrician has withstood many things: rips in space-time, rogue spells, incarceration, wars and assassination attempts. A mistress, even a young one, would cause only momentary scandal; it certainly wouldn't end his political career. But in the early days, he made her think so. It was better than telling her the truth.

            She soon discovered a good deal of it herself anyway.

            He crosses a short lawn that stretches in front of the house. It's a stone cottage on a lonely dead end on the outskirts of Ankh's most exclusive neighborhood. It has two floors, columns before the front door and great wide windows everywhere. She insisted that the parlours have sunlight on those few days of the year when the sun breaks through the haze over Ankh-Morpork. There are many old trees to assure privacy, a 10-foot hedge along the perimeter of the land and a relatively large garden with rose bushes behind the house. The neighbors call Ellie Miss Trenolone and think her romantic when they see her on the balcony gazing toward the city.

--

            After the argument, Vetinari's visits were strained. Ellie would sit in a chair and say nothing the entire evening. When he left he'd touch her hair but she wouldn't look at him.

            He still visited. Even when it was no longer safe, instructive or amusing. It was quiet. And it was, he had to admit, a habit. A couple of weeks without seeing Ellie and he began to snap at the clerks. There wasn't a moment at the Palace when he unwound. No comfortable arm chair, no fire grate.

            One evening, Ellie awakened from whatever reverie she'd been in since the argument. Without a word, she climbed onto Vetinari's lap and fell asleep with his arms around her.

            After that, she asked questions. About his childhood, his parents, his aunt, his schooling, what he was doing when he first found her. She wanted to know where he lived, what kind of curtains hung in his bedroom, what kind of wood his desk was made of, how many knives he kept for protection, where the secret passages in the palace were. She knew the names of the lords and the diplomats already but now she wanted to know about the clerks, the maids, the cooks. She asked how many people he'd killed with his own hands, and how many he'd ordered killed. She asked if he had any friends. The interrogation lasted a month and Vetinari answered everything honestly, even admitting to the scarce and mainly opportunistic friendships he had.

            "I think I understand now," Ellie said. It was a warm night and they sat on the settee before the open window. "It's all so sad, really. And unfair."

            "I believe the phrase - Who said life was fair? - is quite popular."

            "It was selfish of you."

            "Yes."

            "You've ruined me."

            "It would have been worse if I'd left you to the streets."

            The curtains fluttered in the breeze. Someone in the street below started singing, a baritone, maybe an opera singer out for an evening walk and a smoke outside the Opera House. Ellie sat up straight, her hands flat on her knees, her eyes on the window.

            "I don't want a father anymore," she said.

            He sighed, something that sounded like a mix of resignation and relief. Several minutes passed in silence. Then he took her hand.

            As the years passed, it was always too dangerous to send her away. Too cruel to lock her up in an isolation more complete than it already was. Though he knew that it was foolish, he visited her when he could and gave her whatever she asked, except for the one thing she wanted the most. Politics hardened him, sharpened his sense of risk, yet he visited when he knew he shouldn't. The liability grew over the years until it became…unacceptable. The Patrician, all told, was a realist. It would have to end, and on his terms.

TBC...


	3. III

Here's the last chapter, where the twists keep coming… Welcome **Leelee**! Wipe that foam off your mouth – more Hanna and Havvie coming up soon. **Anna**, good to see you again, and answers to your questions below. **Archer**, everyone who knows me knows I _hate_ cliff hangers. ;-) Thanks to all for the reviews. Enjoy the rest of the story despite crappy formatting.

3.

She's on the balcony, watering the potted hyacinths. The Patrician lets himself in through the garden gate and waits for her to notice him. She sets down the watering can and leans on her elbows on the stone rail.

"I come bearing presents," he announces, holding up the packages.

Ellie smiles and waves for him to come in.

The parlour is painted yellow with white moulding along the ceiling, and the floors are covered with Klatchian carpets that have a dominant shade of red. There are flowering plants everywhere. And books, stacks that don't fit in the formal library in the room next door. A pianoforte stands in the corner, its body painted with rural scenes. A microscope sits among small labeled boxes on a shelf over a desk piled with papers, ink bottles and quills. The cabinet next to the desk contains glass bulbs, beakers and small bottles of various liquids. It's a dabbler's room, evidence of a searching and disorganized mind.

"Why don't you let the maid tidy up sometimes?" Vetinari asks as he sets the gifts on a table.

"You ask me that every week and you know the answer very well. Coffee?" Ellie has discovered the merits of the bean over the leaf. Vetinari, normally a tea man, nods.

Ellie is tall and slightly plump due to her sweet tooth and quiet, scholarly lifestyle. Her hair has darkened naturally over the years and is now a deep chestnut, styled in a simple fashion because she has better things to do than sit at a mirror all morning. She's wearing peach taffeta and it suits her.

"Say hello to Lara or she'll be moody the rest of the night," she says.

After shedding his coat and setting the newspaper on a table, the Patrician goes to the cage hanging in the corner and pays his respects to the white cockateel perched inside.

"You're looking ravishing as always, Lara," he says. The bird cocks her head, then turns her back on him and spreads her wings.

"I've had to take her mirror away, she's got so vain," Ellie says as she backs into the room wheeling a coffee service. They sit and she pours. The Patrician drinks his black, Ellie with a bit of cream.

He talks of his work for awhile. Uberwald has settled down, Muntab is found. Peace abroad means more time for domestic concerns. He tells her about his ideas for public sanitation, especially as regards to sewage and clean drinking water. She listens, makes suggestions, sips her coffee. The newspaper sits on the table before them, the top headline in bold: _Patrician Leads Double Life?_

When they finish, Ellie clears away the coffee things. "Are we doing presents now or later?"

"Whenever you like."

She pulls a small box out from behind the clutter next to the arm chair. As she hands it to the Patrician, she smiles sadly. "Happy anniversary."

He has a meticulous system for removing wrapping paper, a slow and precise process that has irritated Ellie at gift giving occasions for years. She's wringing her hands with impatience by the time he pulls the paper aside to reveal the box.

"Open it," she urges.

Inside is an iconograph of Ellie in color. She's smiling at the camera.

"You can throw out the old black and white ones now," she says.

"I like the old ones."

"Because I'm younger in them."

He wraps the picture back in tissue paper. "It's lovely, thank you." He gives her a peck on the cheek. "I'll keep it with the rest."

"Someone will find your stash of iconographs one day, you know."

"Certainly within five minutes of my death, assuming I die in the streets near an enterprising pickpocket." He sets the box aside and sits quietly for a moment. "And now for your gift…"

He goes to the table and looks down at the boxes. One large and blue tied with silver, one small and white, tied with black.

"Lady Sybil came by for coffee a few days ago," Ellie says from the couch. "A truly kind woman. You were right about her. She doesn't have a suspicious bone in her body."

The Patrician leans against the table, his gaze still on the gifts. Silver ribbon, black ribbon.

"Her baby is almost due," says Ellie. "Another month. She hid her worry about her age. Apparently, Vimes does that too. It sounds like he's very sweet to her."

Vetinari is only half listening. There's a pounding in his ears that he realizes is his own heart beat. Blue box, white box. Silver ribbon, black. His eyes finally settle on the white box.

"Lady Sybil is so lucky to have found a husband who loves her," says Ellie. She watches the Patrician pull a pair of black gloves from his pocket. She looks down at the newspaper again, and back up at Vetinari.

He slips one of the gloves on.

"How did the coffee taste?" Ellie asks suddenly.

He stops. Turns.

Black coffee, he thinks. Bitter. What would she use? He routinely takes antidotes against arsenic and strychnine, small doses of countless other poisons to increase his resistance. She knows that. He taught it to her. She's been watched, so it must be a home grown toxin. Something innocent, something household… He thinks of peach pits, apricots, apples, wild cherries. And cyanide. Her chemistry equipment, her microscope, long days alone.

Slowly, he sits down beside her and tries to control his breathing. Ellie is perched on the edge of the couch, her posture still excellent. He stares at the skin at the back of her neck and lets a thin knife slide silently out of his sleeve.

She squeezes her eyes shut.

"Do you love me, Havelock?"

He freezes.

"You've never said in twenty years."

Vetinari expected something like this years ago. He's surprised she didn't ask earlier. He hesitates, then raises the tip of the knife to the back of her neck.

"There is no point discussing it now."

She gets up quickly and crosses to the table where his gifts are. "You were going to give me the white box?" she asks without looking at him.

"What did you use in the coffee?"

"Nothing. You have an overly suspicious mind."

He goes to stand beside her. "We're at a rather serious impasse then, aren't we? It's perfectly possible that you've played a cruel trick on me. Nothing less than I deserve, I'll grant you, but a nasty little trick nonetheless." He leans close and whispers in her ear. "Tell me the truth, Ellie."

"I already have. Would you like to hear more? You will never use that knife on me. You will never kill me. You will never send me away or allow me to leave."

"You exaggerate your own importance."

"Do I?" She gives him a grim smile. "You must think I've learned nothing over the years. But don't forget, Vetinari was my saviour. My teacher. I know what you know. You always led me to believe that this secrecy and isolation was a political necessity. I've known for a long time it has nothing to do with politics and everything to do with you."

"You make the mistake of drawing a distinction where there is none. It's all much simpler. I am the Patrician and nothing else."

"Not in this house. Not with me."

"If I recall, this is my house. I distinctly remember buying it."

"Just as you bought me." She taps Vetinari's tie. "One gold piece, do you remember? Why do you think I gave it to you?"

He considers how to word the answer. Of course he knows why. He worked out the motives of a 16-year-old without any trouble. It seems vulgar to speak of it.

"You were rather…infatuated," he says.

"Yes, but that wasn't the reason. I wanted to buy myself back."

"A noble gesture. With my own money."

"Mine. I earned it. Some of your agents were worse than others. I worked for months without you knowing. You were too busy becoming Patrician."

Vetinari's grip on the knife weakens a fraction.

"I couldn't believe that you didn't know what I was trying to tell you," says Ellie. "It took me a bit of time, but I worked out that you didn't want to know. You would never free me regardless of what I did."

"My word. Some of the cleverest men of our time have tried to work out my intentions and you managed it as a teenager. Astonishing."

Ellie picks up the newspaper.

"You knew they'd find out one day. I'm just amazed you still thought you could erase me like any other threat to you or the city."

"Unpleasant though it may be, necessity, at times, begs certain actions."

"You won't do it, and I'll tell you why. Two reasons." She holds up one finger. "First, you would be totally and irretrievably alone in this world." She holds up a second. "And despite everything you've done to me, you've never managed to be anything but a basically decent man."

"How flattering. And so fundamentally incorrect. You read the newspapers. I'm a ruthless tyrant before whom no one is safe. Or a benevolent despot who keeps the terror at a nice minimum. It really depends on which you read. That's public opinion for you. Either way, I appear to be, in the public mind, something of a bastard."

"I don't care about public opinion and neither do you. You don't care about scandal. You made me for yourself and no one else. I know what you're thinking. You've sacrificed everything for the city except this one little girl, and now she'll be out there in the open, a possession of Ankh-Morpork just like everything else in your life." Her voice softens. "I could never harm you. I have no one else in the world either. You made sure of it, this terrible dependence. Except it trapped you too, didn't it?" She sighs. "Put the knife away and decide what you want to do, Havelock. White box or blue?"

There's a beat of time. Two beats. The cockateel scrambles in her cage and it rocks back and forth, the chain squealing faintly.

Then the Patrician uses the gloved hand to lift the white box by its ribbon and carries it out the garden doors. Ellie leans against the doorway as he goes to the small compost heap at the back of the garden, makes a hole with a shovel and drops the box inside. He covers it over and peels off the glove.

"This is all so impossibly foolish," he sighs.

"You always were soft-hearted," she says. "From my very first bowl of cabbage soup."

He kisses her hand. It's not enough. He hugs and kisses her a long time out of relief, gratefulness, love. When he releases her, he takes her to the blue box. She shakes it vigorously next to her ear.

"Not breakable."

"Goodness no. I learned my lesson last year with the crystal vase."

Unlike the Patrician, Ellie goes for the most destructive way to open presents, which also happens to be the most efficient. She tears through the paper, opens the box and smiles at the polished mahogany chest inside.

"It's beautiful," she says. "I needed a new jewelry box."

"Open it. Please."

She lifts the lid, expecting music. There's none. Only a scroll tied with red ribbon. The paper is so stubborn about unrolling that Ellie has to pin it on her lap with both hands to read. It informs her that Ellisandra Trenolone (Phalian) is now a citizen of Ankh-Morpork with all of the rights and privileges thereof.

"I was born here," she says.

"Actually, you were born in Phalia."

"Where's that?"

"No one is quite certain where it is _now_, but traditionally, it sat roughly in the location where our world maps get…creative. Somewhere in the region usually labelled 'Here be dragons.'"

"I think I've seen posters about it," she says thoughtfully.

"It was a very obscure place. Fortunately, you were able to escape before it a) sank into the ocean, b) was destroyed by a volcano, c) fell victim to random or malicious magic or d) all of the above. There are various theories among geographical experts."

Ellie tucks the scroll back into the jewelry box, gives the Patrician a long, shrewd look, then goes to pull a lexicon from a stack of books next to the pianoforte. Under the letter "p," she scans the pages until she finds it: Phalia. A mysterious island nation of half a million people that was discovered twenty years ago by an explorer Ellie never heard of. When an expedition returned to the spot, the entire island was gone.

The book cradled in her arms, Ellie eases back onto the sofa. One thing Vetinari taught her was not to believe in coincidences. Twenty years ago, she was found. Twenty years ago, so was a lonely island…

"You _didn't_," she says.

The Patrician smiles.

"You really didn't."

He's still smiling, enjoying the surprise on her face.

"Discovered twenty years ago and then disappeared? It's nonsense!" She laughs suddenly. "How did you do it?"

"A few whispers in the ears of the right people. Scraps of a diary and sea maps from the explorer. A few artefacts. You really should come and see the Palace collection. The Phalians were known for their pottery. But you should know that."

As a young man giving a coin to a filthy little orphan girl at Peterson's Rest, Vetinari conceived of what he now considers to be his most elegant – if youthfully foolish -- plan: the invention of a country. Slowly, he planted tiny evidence of Phalia's existence over the years, altered rare old books to give reference to it, forged a lost letter or two in the hand of long dead scholars who mentioned the place, left cryptic hints on old maps. Two years ago, geographers from across the Disc met in Ankh-Morpork for a symposium on Phalia: The Vanished Land. It was the high point of Vetinari's success in the matter.

Ellie closes the lexicon but keeps her finger at the entry for the country she knows never existed except in the minds of people who've been led to believe in it.

"Why did you do it?" she asks.

"Perhaps you can guess."

"Tell me anyway."

He savours her curiosity a few more moments before telling the truth at last.

"An effective Patrician must practice neutrality at all times," he says. "This is true of internal politics and international diplomacy. If one day he finds a lady possessing the qualities he values, admires and needs the most, it is necessary, for political reasons, for her to also be neutral in all matters related to her life and background. A lady with no social ties, economic interests, family pressures or loyalty to an existing nation is a lady with a most perfect neutrality. She is also, of course, a most perfect lady for a Patrician."

The explanation doesn't seem to impress her after all. She sets the lexicon aside and goes to the table where the Patrician's knife sits next to a pot of violets. The black steel blade looks duller than it is. She picks it up.

"I won't be cut in half, Havelock. You'll have to share me with other people and give me space to live and let me go places alone. No spies. And you have to trust me to manage my own affairs…"

He takes the knife out of her hand and sets it carefully back on the table. "All of your conditions will be accepted if you accept mine. Play the tragic Phalian lady every day for the rest of your life. Be mysterious and evasive and lovely and you will be the toast of the city. But regardless of what Ankh-Morpork gives you, all the temptations and worries it will offer, you must always come home."

"To the Palace?"

The Patrician coughs delicately into his fist. "You do remember the line: Atalanta, do not marry. Marriage will be your ruin."

Smiling, Ellie takes his hands. "_Your_ ruin, maybe. And that would be mine too, I suppose. That is the point, isn't it?"

Just then, insistent knocking begins at the front door of the house. Outside one of the parlour windows, a man with an iconograph slung around his neck trips over a hedge. He gets his equipment in position in time to shoot the iconograph that will make him famous: the only image of the Patrician Lord Vetinari kissing the last survivor of a vanished land.

END


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